James Anderson

Bio

James Anderson is Communications Manager for WRI's Forests Program, where he leads communications and media outreach on projects such as Global Forest Watch, Global Restoration Initiative, and Forest Legality Alliance. James develops outreach strategies, designs communications materials, engages with media and partners, and identifies opportunities for WRI's forests work to have greater impact.

Previously, James was a Research Fellow at the Gobabeb Training and Research Centre in Namibia, where he managed a desert ecology research program and field school, coordinated media outreach, and advised Namibia’s Strategic Environmental Assessment on the social and environmental impacts of uranium mining. James has also worked with Jones Associates Foresters in Maine, the Fish and Wildlife Service in Kodiak, Alaska and the National Park Service at Mt. Rainier, Washington. Most recently, he was a writer for the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History’s online biodiversity database The Encyclopedia of Life.

James is passionate about both effective communications and rigorous research. He studied English and Environmental Studies at Grinnell College, Iowa.

James is an avid hiker and runner, and plays mandolin with the WRI house band "The String Refresh."

Russia and Canada experienced massive tree cover loss in 2011-2013, with annual losses in their northern forests equal to an area the size of Ireland, mostly due to forest fires, according to new satellite data from WRI’s Global Forest Watch.

The New York Declaration on Forests issued at the UN Climate Summit last month includes a global pledge to restore 350 million hectares of deforested and degraded landscapes by 2030.

Several countries confirmed their commitment to restore millions of hectares of degraded land, with Ethiopia making one of the most significant pledges—setting a target to restore 15 million hectares of degraded and deforested land into productivity by 2025.

Indonesia's parliament recently approved an agreement to reduce haze pollution from land and forest fires.

Ratification of the law—originally signed 12 years ago—comes not a moment too soon: Fires are currently flaring across southern Sumatra and West and Central Kalimantan, jeopardizing Indonesia’s forests and the communities and wildlife that call these regions home.

Forest and bush fires, often associated with agricultural expansion and land conflict, can release a toxic haze that shuts down schools and airports, and sickens tens of thousands of people. Efforts to stop the fires have been hampered by a lack of high-quality evidence on where exactly the fires are and who could be responsible.

Indonesia and Singapore have been bracing themselves in recent weeks as warnings that this year's dry season would likely herald a severe spike in forest fires in Sumatra, with toxic haze across the region.